Working with traumatic material: Effects on Holocaust Memorial Museum staff.

1995 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. McCarroll ◽  
Arthur S. Blank ◽  
Kathryn Hill
Keyword(s):  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
Holocaust Memorial Museum ◽  
Museum Staff

REPRESENTATION OF HISTORY: CONTEMPORARY ART IN MUSEUMS OF CONSCIENCE

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-132
Author(s):  
Tat'yana Yu. Mironova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Art Exhibitions ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
Holocaust Memorial Museum ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Historical Issues

Contemporary art more and more actively interacts with the nonartistic museums. For instance, biological, historical as well as anthropological museums become spaces for contemporary art exhibitions or initiate collaborative projects. This process seeks to link different types of materials to make the interaction successful. Thus, several questions appear: can we talk about interaction, if the museum becomes a place for the exhibition devoted to the topics of history, ethnography or biology? Does any appearance of contemporary art in the museum territory become a part of intercultural dialogue? And how do we assess and analyze the process of interaction between these two spheres? Among nonartistic museums working with contemporary art the museums of conscience appear to be one of the most interesting. This type of museums is quite new – it developed in 1990s when the International Coalition of Sites of Coscience was created and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was founded. The interaction between contemporary art and museums of conscience starts to develop in the context of changing attitudes towards historical memory as well as widening the notion of museums. In this situation museums need new instruments for educational and exhibitional work. Contemporary artists work with the past through personal memories and experience, when museums turn to documents and artifacts. So, their collaboration connects two different optics: artistic and historical. Thus, it is possible to use the Michel Foucault term dispositif to analyze the collaboration between artists and museums. Foucault defines the dispositif as a link between different elements of the system as well as optics that makes us to see and by that create the system. The term allows us to connect the questions of exhibition work with philosophical and historical issues when we analyze the projects in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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